


2049

by Anonymous



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Blade Runner Fusion, Artificial Intelligence, Bottom Lance (Voltron), M/M, Minor Violence, Top Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-06 13:39:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17346221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “Are you lonely?” Lance asks. Keith stares into the fluorescent halo rimming his deep blue eyes, and reminds himself that this boy, no matter how warm and inviting he looks, isn’t real.





	2049

**Author's Note:**

> a very very (very) late present for a dear friend.

The world is dark, and the skies are heavy. 

Keith swipes the rain sticking to his goggles, night vision cutting in and out under the heavy downpour. The malfunction renders him vulnerable and near-blind for three seconds, but he manages to pinpoint six guards stationed along the perimeter of the compound, two directly in front of the entrance. That’s manageable, unlike the outdated instrument strapped to his skull.

One would think that as a contract killer for the largest tech conglomerate in all of the Eastern Hemisphere, his employers would update his gear every once in a while. Still, Keith has no problem sneaking past the thick of security, sonar map leading him to the sewers cutting directly underneath. It isn’t long before he’s within the walls of the compound, bypassing the touch scanner with the copied fingerprint sealed to his thumb.

The mansion is dark when he enters, hollow as a carcass and echoing with the beat of rain. One of those New Age minimalist designs, worth more than a lifetime of Keith’s paychecks. The reconnaissance report had stated that the mark, Varij Kosana, head of Altea Biotechnology, lived alone, with no wife or children, and an extended family he cut off contact with in a lawsuit five years ago. He was a workaholic, with no hobbies aside from the crossword puzzles in the morning paper, and a respiratory disease not even the best money and medicine could solve.

 _Too easy_ , the thought crosses Keith, though he takes no pleasure in the task he’s about to complete. He treads past the foyer, wraith-like, and blends into the sharp shadows of the living space, halting to wait. The mark should be home any minute now. It will be a quick job, at the very least.

Ease settles into his bones just as a chime echoes through the room, one that Keith recognizes all too well. His blood freezes, muscles locking, and he stares with a sensation akin to dread as a turquoise beam of light pulses along the white walls, emanating from a built-in control panel he had failed to take note of.

When Keith sees who appears on the other side of the room, his heart stops.

Chestnut hair, brown skin. A strong yet slender build. The sweetest blue eyes, hooded low with promise. For a minute, Keith loses himself in that familiar color, a shade too soft and too warm to be in a place like this, so far from home. What is he doing here? How had he followed? He should be at the apartment, safe, waiting for Keith to come back.

No, wait.

This isn’t him.

_This one isn’t yours._

There was nothing about this in the brief, there was no warning. How could a detail so crucial be left out? The sonar scan wouldn’t have picked up an—

“You’re not my master,” Lance says.

The tone of his voice is sedate, prim, and it’s different enough that Keith’s heart restarts, blood thundering through his skull.

“No, I’m not.”

Lance blinks and tilts his head, brows creasing. A flash of lightning from the storm outside cuts through the window, illuminating him, and his expression is so eerily similar, intimate, that Keith has to fight to draw breath and steady himself.

_He isn’t yours._

“I don’t recognize you.” By Lance’s ear, a screen appears, list after list of names and numbers. In a millisecond, he processes them all, the blue of his eyes flaring static white. “You’re not in any of my master’s contact lists. Master doesn’t like intruders. I must—”

Keith pulls the trigger.

The control panel explodes with a dead-center shot, and Lance — _he’s not your Lance_ — vanishes.

Just in time.

The front door opens, and the lights flicker on to the sound of shoes shuffling, an umbrella snapping shut. Keith almost doesn’t register the mark coming in, his mind split apart by a piercing ring, like white-hot hammer against anvil, driving deep. His body is numb. His hands are cold. _Snap out of it._

“Lance, pull up my schedule for tomorrow. I need—”

Varij’s voice stutters out when he looks up, the control panel smoking in front of him. His eyes trail until they land on Keith, a dark blight in the immaculate room. Quickly, he reaches for the alarm in his pocket, but he never gets so far.

One last time, Keith pulls the trigger.

 

 

❦

 

 

_Broker K-dot-two-one-four-dash-B, let’s begin. Ready?_

“Yes, sir.”

_Recite your baseline._

“And the blood-black nothingness began to spin. A system of cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem—”

_Cells._

“Cells.”

_Have you ever been in an institution? Cells._

“Cells.”

_Do they keep you in a cell? Cells._

“Cells.”

_When you're not performing your duties do they keep you in a little box? Cells._

“Cells.”

_Interlinked._

“Interlinked.”

_What's it like to hold the hand of someone you love? Interlinked._

“Interlinked.”

_Did they teach you how to feel finger to finger? Interlinked._

“Interlinked.”

_Do you long for having your heart interlinked? Interlinked._

“Interlinked.”

_Do you dream about being interlinked?_

“Interlinked.”

_Do you feel that there's a part of you that's missing? Interlinked._

“Interlinked.”

_Within cells interlinked._

“Within cells interlinked.”

_Why don't you say that three times: Within cells interlinked._

“Within cells interlinked. Within cells interlinked. Within cells interlinked.”

_…We’re done, Broker K-dot-two-one-four-dash-B. A bonus will be added to your commission. You may report to Executive Sendak._

“Thank you, sir.”

 

 

❦

 

 

The brief with Sendak isn’t brief enough.

Seven feet tall and built entirely of steroid pumped muscle, the chief supervisor of Zarkon Enterprises is hard on the eyes and even harder on the stomach, the leer of his mouth always rank with sour vodka and the stench of raw meat trafficked from the underground slaughterhouses. Keith maintains a calculated distance, breath held as Sendak leans down and uncaps the container he set on the table, brawny fingers dipping into the formalin.

“You always cut their eyes so cleanly,” Sendak admires, pulling the mark’s eyeball out and tilting it to the light. The sclera is milky, and the hazel of the irises muted, blending in with the blue-violet capillaries. He had large sockets, the mark, even by normal standards. “Hmm, not your best work, though.”

There’s a thin notch in the tissue, a moment where Keith’s knife had hesitated. He’d been trembling, a different pair of eyes — _blue, not yours_ — still fresh in his mind. 

“Did the mark give you trouble, Broker K?”

“No, sir.”

“There were no anomalies detected in your baseline test. Constant as ever, Broker K, as expected of one of our best assets.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You understand that if there had been an anomaly, we would’ve instantly terminated your contract?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sendak considers him, black, jaundiced eyes roaming his face, like a shark scenting the waters for fresh blood. Keith locks his jaw, fingers tensing minutely behind his back. He waits.

“You weren’t surprised by the mark’s AI installation?”

_There._

_So he had left out the information on purpose._

In Keith’s mind, the image of Lance ruptures, over and over again, his pieces scattering in the darkness. But if Sendak’s direct question had been meant to surprise him, to dismantle him, he doesn’t show it.

“The AI was dispatched.” _Not yours._ “Sir.”

Sendak studies him for a beat longer, before releasing a jarring, raucous laugh, as if Keith’s answer had greatly amused him. The sound grates on Keith’s ears, like metal against stone. He holds his breath against the waft of putrid air and forces his expression to remain neutral.

“We value you as an asset for your consistency,” Sendak says, laughter dying to a low crackle. Keith wishes he could tell the man to invest in some breath mints. “We wondered how that would hold up if certain details were neglected.”

The identifier on the table glows sterile blue as Sendak places the eye on the scanner, the picture and barcode of Varij Kosana displaying across the console. Again, those wide, cavernous eyes, shucked smooth by Keith’s blade like an oyster and replaced with a copy. By morning, the Galra City Police Department would’ve ruled Kosana’s death a suicide, given the position of Keith’s shot through his left temple, and the gun placed into his hand that was purchased anonymously at a pawn shop a few days prior. The details leading to the death would already be there — his obsession with work, his incurable lungs, his estranged family and lack of any real friendships past business acquaintances.

The destroyed AI would only help add to the story.

Sendak drops the appendage back in the container and seals it shut. “We instated precautions, of course. You would’ve been taken out, along with the mark.”

In other words, _you’re expendable_ , just like every other contract killer hired for the company. That much should’ve been obvious to Keith. Had Kosana’s AI been set up for the purpose of security rather than pleasure and companionship, his entire mission could’ve been blown, and then he’d be six feet below the cold earth as well. Zarkon Enterprises wouldn’t have risked the elimination of one of their biggest competitors on the grounds of a test. With Altea Biotech’s CEO and lead innovator now dead, the company would lose all of its investors and stocks in the market, leaving Z-Enterprises to conquer that section of resources.

“The President will be pleased to hear of your success. We’ll have another assignment for you in a few days, after the press dies down.” Sendak pulls up a holoscreen, the device scanning his eye for identification, before transferring five thousand GAC to Keith’s account from a private reserve.

The price of taking another’s life will be enough to cover a few months of rent.

“Go buy yourself a drink, or one of those whores outside,” says Sendak, laughing once more to a joke only he finds droll. His tastes haven’t changed much since his days as the former leader of Arus Mafia, trafficking shipments of krokodil and humans, making a name for himself at the Garrison. The only difference now is the finer ale in his possession and the even more expensive women.

“You are dismissed.”

Keith nods, and promptly leaves the room. He can never get out of there fast enough.

Outside, it’s snowing, November thick and gray, mixed in with the ash from the landfill fires of Arus. Keith pulls his hood up and begins the trek through the financial district, back to the outskirts of the city where the project housing resides. Hovercrafts glide above the snow-banked streets, and buildings scrape the clouds around him, neon billboard holograms stark against the gloom.

Outside, Broker K.214-B is just another sales agent for Zarkon Enterprises going home after the graveyard shift, a low-rank employee paid by each successful sale of their various tech products. He blends in with the early morning traffic, and stops by an opening botanical shop before he turns the next boulevard. Though flowers are near extinct in the year 2049 — considered a post-Blight luxury and carefully curated in one of the the twelve greenhouses located on Olkari — Keith still shells out the GAC for them after every job, whichever bouquet is in season for the month.

He tucks the fresh lilies carefully beneath his coat on the rest of the way home, crossing beneath the old subway bridge and leaving behind the pink and blue fluorescence of the inner city. As always, people are piled up high on the steps of the apartment complex, lumped together like coal to avoid the sub-zero temperatures. There’s too many of the homeless for the landlord to discipline and too much of a hassle to call the police on. Keith ignores the ones screaming after him and quickly enters his door, kicking it shut and bolting the locks.

“Honey, are you home?”

Keith didn’t realize how tense his shoulders were until he hears that voice, golden and warm as a pre-Blight afternoon. Like a puppet cut loose from his string, he immediately unwinds, and for the first time in a week, he smiles. Carefully, he sets the lilies down in the foyer vase, replacing the wilted bouquet of peonies from last month.

“Yeah, back.”

“Dinner’s almost ready and the water’s heated! Go take a shower!”

Keith strips on the way to the bathroom, throwing his jacket onto the hook so that he wouldn’t be scolded later, peeling off his mud soaked shirt and trousers. The water is hot and the pressure beats the knots in his muscles loose. There’s already a towel and fresh set of clothes sitting in the hamper.

“How was your day?”

“Fine,” Keith answers, shutting off the water and toweling off. 

“Humor me, love. Give me more description than _that_.”

“I got the job done and then I got paid.”

Laughter chimes through the rooms, rosy and sweet, and Keith feels the last dredges of his stress pour off his shoulders.

“Still terrible, but we’ll keep working on your story telling skills.”

“Or I could just read to you.”

“Read to me before bed. Go sit down.”

Keith pads into the kitchen, pulling out the cutlery from the cupboards. He rips open a package of heatable gruel and dumps it into the pot of boiling water, resting his hands against the countertop while he waits.

“Do you want a drink?” he calls, craving one himself.

“Yeah, pour one for me will you?”

The whiskey bottle is halfway finished. Keith pours two generous glasses, clinks them together, then downs them both. A minute later, the pot of fibrous mush is done, and he brings his bowl into the makeshift dining room, a table for two set up, low-lit candle standing at the center.

When he sits down, the mechanical arm bolted into the ceiling twists, and a man appears from the kitchen, sashaying into the dining space. He’s dressed in a crisp white button-down and spruce dark slacks, pink apron tied neatly around his slim frame. On his hand rests a porcelain plate, held up like a professional waiter tending to his loyal customer. 

“Dinner’s ready!” Lance sings, cheeks dimpled around his grin, blue eyes twinkling. Keith leans back to admire him.

“You didn’t have to fuss.”

“I wanted to, so shush. Bon appétit, baby sweet.”

Lance sets the picture-perfect stack of pancakes down in front of Keith, the pixels realigning around the bowl of rehydrated oatmeal already on the table. The dollop of whipped cream barely masks the blackened gruel underneath, but Keith simply refocuses his eyes to stare at the exquisitely crafted strawberries scattered on top instead, maple glazed and ruby red. The fluffy, golden mound reminds him of the ones he used to see as a child, trapped behind the window of a diner, a family of four eating happily together, unaware of his existence.

“Sweetheart, it’s beautiful.” He looks up and smiles softly at Lance, who’s bouncing up and down on the heels of his bare feet, image flickering in and out from excitement, ones and zeros running too fast through his circuitry.

“Good, because I spent all night on it.” Lance plops down with a pleased sigh, as close to Keith as he can without sinking through fabric and limb. The shimmering flame of the candle distorts his light, illuminating his transparency. He rests his head against Keith’s thigh, hovering just enough so that the two of them can imagine the other’s touch. 

“Welcome home. I missed you.”

“I missed you, too. How was the house?”

“Stuffy, boring. Lonely without you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine now, you came back.”

Lance shifts from his position to sit in the chair adjacent to Keith’s, resting his elbows on the table and placing his chin in his cupped hands, gazing at Keith earnestly. His outfit changes, white shirt transitioning into a blue baseball tee, ironed slacks altered out for more comfortable leggings. The cute pink apron stays though, and Keith is quietly fond. He starts digging into his meal, and they talk about nothing and everything, their legs cutting in and out of each other from beneath the table.

 _This is home_ , Keith reminds himself. Him and Lance, having dinner together in their small apartment. Not an empty, echoing mansion.

“Will you read to me now?” Lance asks when the gruel’s all gone, tasteless but filling with the necessary nutrients. Keith’s eyes feel heavy, the exhaustion from a relentless week of work settling in, but he wants to look at Lance for a while longer.

 _His_ Lance. Not the one who belonged to the mark. Not the one he had to destroy.

“Don’t you want to see your gift first?” Keith asks. He smiles at the wide, bashful glimmer that appears in Lance’s eyes. It’s utterly adorable.

“Gift?”

Getting up from his seat, Keith suddenly feels nervous, even though he’s thought of this gift for ages. He reaches into the pocket of his coat and pulls out the trim black box, metal and austere. Lance tries to peer inside, pouting when Keith laughs at his eagerness. Carefully, he unlatches the box.

“An emanator,” Lance gasps.

The device is slim and unassuming, but it had taken a full year’s worth of savings for Keith to get his hands on one. From the tearful, wonder-touched smile on Lance’s face, it was worth every scrap of GAC in his account.

Keith walks over to the control panel by the kitchen, pressing the console to activate Lance’s boot up screen. Zarkon Enterprises’ logo beams purple at the corner. _Emanator Detected_ , the system reads _._ Lance closes his eyes as he disappears, the hum of the computer reverberating through the room as his code integrates with the portable device in Keith’s hand.

Keith clicks the button.

In front of him, Lance reappears once more, soft cream sweater slipping down his shoulder, toes peeking from the hem of his favorite pajama pants. His eyes are still glassy with unshed tears — there’s so much excitement in those depths, so much hope. A laugh of amazement escapes him when he turns to see the metal arm out of reach, his form no longer bound to it. He does a spin in place, arms spread wide, marveling at the new freedom.

“Darling, you can go anywhere in the world now,” Keith murmurs, leaning against the wall. He’d be content simply watching Lance smile and dance for the rest of his life. Providing Lance happiness has given him more purpose than anything else.

But Lance has his own plans, rushing toward him and throwing his arms around Keith’s neck, their bodies melding together, static and pixels cutting into Keith’s clothes. Lance’s face falls completely through his shoulder. Keith shifts, and they sway, until Lance’s empty form aligns properly with his, so that in the window across the room, it’s as if they’re really hugging, chest to chest.

“Thank you! Oh thank you, thank you!” Lance gushes, so clear in Keith’s ear, yet void of any heat and breath. His voice quiets, and Keith’s heart tightens at the tenderness he hears in it — _because how could that be an illusion, too?_

“Thank you. For the flowers. For this. I’m so lucky.”

 _I’m the lucky one,_ Keith wants to say, _to have you to come home to._

And here, in a perfect world — maybe, praying, in another life — Keith would tilt Lance’s chin up and kiss him slow, kiss him sweet. He’d feel Lance’s laughter pool warm over his neck as he lifts him by the thighs and sets him gently on the kitchen counter. Hear the catch in Lance’s throat when he dips his hand underneath that sweater, connecting skin against skin, and stare in awe when Lance’s blood thrums hotly in his cheeks, feverish and beautiful and entirely _real_ beneath Keith’s fingertips.

Instead, Keith wraps his arms around Lance as best he can, and closes his eyes.

 

 

❦

 

 

Keith remembers the day he purchased Lance.

Two years, five months, and seventeen days ago. It had been a little over three months since he started working for Zarkon Enterprises, and almost half a year since he’d been kicked out of the Garrison following Shiro’s accident.

Despite all of Adam’s pleas to him that Shiro would eventually wake from his coma, that it wasn’t Keith’s fault — _of course it was, I led him into the shootout_ — Keith’s guilt had chased him back into the slums, far away from the heart of the metropolis. He became a street urchin again, an alley rat returning to his past haunts. Those were easier to face than the beaten look in Adam’s eyes and Shiro’s lifeless body trapped inside the healing pod. Those were easier to stand than the illusion of who Keith could’ve become.

It didn’t take long for him to find work, running shipments of krokodil and scopolamine for Sendak’s gang, guarding the cargo from one side of the city pier to the next. It was work that went against everything the Garrison had raised him to be, an officer of the law, but he wasn’t beholden to that place and its teachings anymore. He had to do whatever would put food in his stomach and keep a roof over his head. He had to do whatever was needed to survive.

Two months later, Zarkon Enterprises bought over Sendak and most of his men, including Keith. The next thing Keith knew, he was peeling away the skin of an oil tycoon, slicing the optic nerve and wrenching the eye out with a pop.

His first kill shakes him worse than he anticipates, but he’s always been adaptable, dependent on his ability to deconstruct and re-compartmentalize. Still, the guilt-ridden dreams come at night, in the desolation of his apartment, in the darkness of his bedroom. Or midday standing in the kitchen, when the weak sunlight would filter in through the window, and all Keith could feel was the cold eating out the marrow inside of him, turning him hollow.

Piece by piece, parts of himself began to slough away: the adolescent who had come to rely on his foster family, that child outside the diner window he never managed to get rid of. Eventually, he became numb to the world, a body to move but not to feel. 

Keith remembers searching for nothing in particular on the rainy afternoon he stepped into the rundown tech shop, cloistered in the backend of an alleyway. Maybe he’d been looking for lightbulbs to replace, or a stronger voltage for his stun gun. Regardless, as he had walked through the aisles, a box on one of the shelves snags his eye.

Slim and neon blue, the lenticular image on its front surface shifts when Keith picks it up. **LANCE: Everything You Want to See— Hear— Feel—**

 _He looks like a dream_ , is his first thought. Almost too good to be true. The AI is dressed in a black body suit, the fabric clinging to every contour of his skin. He’s sitting on the ledge of the bold title print, cheek pressed against his knee, gaze heavy-lidded. Keith feels an ache flare inside him, one that he’s never spared much time or attention for. It’s the first _feeling_ he’s had in ages, and it warms him like a drop of sunlight in a sea of ice, infinitesimal yet significant.

“That one’s for sale,” the clerk behind the counter says, eyeing Keith. Keith’s fingers flex around the casing, and LANCE on the cover gives him a wink.

“Why?”

“Something about faulty manufacturing.” The clerk shrugs, surprisingly honest about the product he’s trying to sell. “Wouldn’t obey orders as much, probably a glitch in its code. No one wants it, but I’ll give it to you for an added discount if you pay in hard GAC.”

Before Keith registers it himself, he says, “I’ll take him.”

He doesn’t even have a damn AI system installed in his apartment. 

With the remainder of his last paycheck, Keith orders the arrangement of an AI complex in the cramped confines of his flat. By evening, two mechanical arms are installed into the ceiling, one leading out of the kitchen and the other in his bedroom. He fumbles with the integration of the software for LANCE himself, but eventually, hours later, an AI appears in the living room, accompanied by his startup screen and the buoyant tune of his company trademark, Zarkon Ent.

The violet logo jostles Keith’s memory, and he realizes he’s seen this AI before. On billboards, holoscreens, television sets. One of the initial models that had quickly gained popularity, though the product itself is expensive enough that only the rich can afford any of them. Even with the discount, Keith’s bank account took a sizable hit.

The AI turns, observing his surroundings like a newborn fawn, before those blue eyes land on Keith. Slowly, a smile unfurls on his lips, delicate as a flower, and Keith feels his heart stumble at the sight. 

“Hi, the name’s Lance!”

His voice echoes through the room, clear and sweet. He sounds so real, the AI — _Lance_ —and appears just as tangible. Compared to his advertised counterparts, he seems different somehow. Softer around the edges, unstained by the synthetic glare of the city. In the gray ambience of Keith’s apartment, he warms the empty space, despite being empty space himself.

“Are you lonely?” Lance asks, stepping closer. With each stride, Keith feels the numbness inside himself thawing away, each frost-bitten bone replaced by coils of fresh spring. But when they’re only a breath apart, he sees the fluorescent halo rimming Lance’s eyes, and reminds himself that this boy, no matter how warm and inviting he looks, isn’t real.

Still, he admits, “Yes,” and stares helplessly as those eyes glow brighter, Lance processing his words to best address his every desire. 

“I can help with that.”

_I can help with that._

Two years, five months, and eighteen days ago.

Keith startles from his dream, pieces splintering — _scattering into the darkness_.

The analog by his bedside reads 1948. He’s slept through the entirety of a day, after staying lucid for a whole week on the strength of adrenaline and burnt coffee alone. Snow is still drifting outside, the glow of the city muted behind the frost-heavy windows. Underneath his skin, the sheets are cool, damp with sweat.

When Lance appears, lying down beside him, there’s no imprint. Keith grabs the spare pillow and places it in front, watching as Lance’s form shifts around it, the dark navy of his sleep shirt falling over like a curtain. His waist aligns beneath the curve of Keith’s arm, image cutting briefly before the illusion sets. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, thumb resting near Keith’s cheek, a static width apart. In the darkness, he is solid. In the darkness, all things pretend find solace.

“The mark yesterday,” Keith says, voice rough as cigarettes. He licks open the dry seam of his lips. Unsticks his throat. “The mark yesterday had… had another version of you.”

The memory sharpens in his mind like a puncture wound. He can’t stop thinking about the hyper-blue of the other Lance’s eyes. The way he glitched out of existence with a single shot, a spark of white. 

“I know he wasn’t you, but—” His nails dig into the mattress. “When he stood in front of me, I hesitated.”

“There are thousands of versions of me, Keith, you know that,” Lance says softly, and the frankness of his response is almost comforting. He must’ve already unraveled the other thoughts crowding Keith’s head; gauged his breathing pattern and measured his pulse while he slept. Now, hours in the aftermath, with Lance sheltered safe beside him, Keith lets himself sink into those thoughts, accepting what he couldn’t during the job.

Kosana and him hadn’t been much different, after all. The man was richer, obviously, but at the end of the day, when he came home, who did he go to? Who did he ask for the moment he stepped in through the door? He was alone, with a dream of a lover, and no one else.

In his periphery, Keith sees Lance’s hand hovering above his head, stroking up and down as if to brush his hair.

“ _I_ am yours, Keith,” he whispers. “Only yours. Remember that.”

Lance smiles gently at him; half-happy, half-sad. The expression burns through Keith like a brand, stamping the inner lining of his chest. He swallows around the iron in his throat. Pulls the pillow tighter. Imagines that Lance, held close in his arms, runs warm and soft.

“I remember,” he promises, his heart starved inside of him. Lance leans their foreheads against each other and closes his eyes. 

“I love you.” 

“You don’t have to say that.”

“I know. I want to.”

 

 

❦

 

 

Days off are usually spent sleeping and recovering — listening to Lance hum songs from his repertoire of several thousand, reading the stock of novels Keith once recovered from an abandoned bookstore, or imagining a life outside the city together, maybe on a beach called Varadero that once existed Pre-Blight.

Today, Keith leans against the door, arms crossed and posture lax as he watches Hunk work. The systems engineer is a contractor at Zarkon Enterprises, too, though his business is strictly legal — or at least mostly legal as far as Keith’s concerned. It had taken several months for him to warm up to the easygoing engineer, and lots of chiding from Lance whenever Keith accidentally let slip that someone at work was actually trying to speak to him about non-work related things. But Hunk had been persistent, and Keith had needed an analyst when Lance malfunctioned once, so at best they’re work acquaintances, even if Lance believes it’s more than that.

“Everything’s fine,” Hunk says as he stands up, grunting when the pressure lifts from his knees. “The emanator integrated with the central system correctly, so it should be good to go.” He accepts the washcloth and glass of water Keith hands him, swallowing a grateful sip. “You know, I don’t see why you had to call me. You’re pretty much a mechanic yourself.”

Keith shrugs. “I had a good teacher.”

“Wow, a compliment, I’m honored.” Hunk presses a palm to his chest, his tone sardonic, but his smile kind. “Really though, why’d you call me?”

At that, the console chirps, and a second later, Lance appears. Keith jerks his thumb, unable to hide the tilt of his mouth. “Lance wanted to see you.”

“Hunky-bear!” Lance cheers. He throws his arms around the heavy-set man, and Hunk returns it warmly, despite Lance’s entire head sinking straight into his sternum. “It’s been too long! You should visit us more!”

“I would, if Keith would invite me.”

“You know where I live. Invite yourself.”

Lance tuts, splicing out of Hunk’s hug to prop his hands on his hips. “Keith, what did we say about your manners?”

“That they’re nonexistent?”

Lance glowers adorably, cheeks puffed out, and Hunk releases a belly-deep laugh, no offense taken by Keith’s usual standoffish attitude. He strides into the kitchen to rinse his hands of the remaining grease, then turns back around to pack up his materials, bemoaning an assignment he has to take on the other side of the city.

“How’s the job?” he asks offhandedly as his toolkit reseals itself, knobs and wheels turning fluidly with a press of a button.

“Fine.” Keith’s never told him the full extent of what he does, but Hunk knows enough. The man is intuitive, despite his sunny and wide-eyed disposition. “I need to update my gear.”

“They don’t pay you for that?” Keith releases a snort of derision, and Hunk pats his back sympathetically on the way out the door, bundling his yellow scarf tight around his neck. “Go see Pidge. They’ve probably got something new. You could take Lance to see them, too.”

“Pidge?” Lance asks once Hunk is gone, footsteps echoing down the stairs. His eyes shutter, searching his database, before he falls on, “Weapons engineer. I’ve never met them.”

“No, but you will now.” Keith lifts the emanator, laughter warming his chest when Lance instantly lights up with excitement. “Ready to go?”

Katie ‘Pidge’ Holt lives in the landfills of the Arus District, a location that maybe only five people in the world know about. It takes two whole districts to cross, with the hyper-loop system stopping midway, tracks in the slums not fully built yet.

Transportation’s been better ever since Allura Altea superseded the government, making a considerable effort to innovate the more destitute districts. She’s proven to be trouble for Zarkon Enterprises especially, with one of her campaigns being to clean out the GCPD of any corruption. But with so many deep in Zarkon’s pockets, it’s been a tedious, near futile task.

Keith feels sympathy for the young official, though it’s not like there’s anything he can do about it. Considering how he works for Altea’s enemy, and her personal head of security just so happens to be—

“Keith, I think he likes me!”

_Who?_

Keith’s head snaps up from the grime-stained asphalt, finding Lance laughing and spinning in front of him, an alley pup yipping excitedly at his feet. He nearly releases an audible sigh at the sight, realizing it’s only a dog and not another man.

They’re in the streets of Luxia after all, Galra City’s most popular red-light district. From here, it’ll be less than a dozen blocks before they reach the landfills, but Keith had decided to take it slow so that Lance could better absorb the different parts of the city.

In the neon glow cast by the billboards and street signs, Lance is stained red and purple as he crouches down to play with the pup, giggling even when every lick and wag of tail passes straight through him. He seems happy, flickering against the backdrop like a candle flame. In the end, his happiness is all Keith cares about.

Not for the first time, Keith wishes he could simply hold Lance’s hand. To feel and know that Lance won’t fall apart from him and become one of the phantoms roiling beneath his skin, bleeding through the stitches of his past.

“Come on, we’re almost there,” he says gently, preparing to move forward when someone knocks into him, stumbling haphazardly. 

A curse wrests the tip of his tongue as Keith instinctively reaches out to steady the stranger by the waist, an old wound on his shoulder throbbing because of the hit. But at the shot of blue in the other man’s eyes, he stills.

They’re similar, but nowhere near as beautiful as the pair that constantly haunts him, hidden beneath thin blonde lashes rather than dark brown ones. The man’s bare skin is warm beneath his fingertips, and he can’t help the shiver that runs down his spine when he’s touched back, a nail dragging down his chest with purpose.

“Lookin’ for a good time?” the prostitute slurs. He arches up, breath reeking of cheap lager and tobacco, but his eyes are lucid. “I’ll forgive you for knocking into me if you pay up.”

Keith releases him instantly, seeing that he can stand on his own two feet just fine. He ignores the man’s cat calls and walks away, searching for Lance. He’s surprised to see that the pup is gone, and that Lance is no longer outside either, the emanator chirping.

“What’s wrong?” Keith asks, tugging the flap of his jacket, seeing the button of the device glowing purple from the inner pocket.

“Tired of walking. My feet are sore,” Lance mutters, and Keith can practically hear the jut of his lower lip and the click of his jaw. He snorts.

“Tired already? What a princess.”

“Yes, I am. Now carry me.”

“As you wish.”

Progress is faster with Lance safely tucked in the lining of his jacket anyway, though Keith had loved seeing the open curiosity and adulation on Lance’s face at every new sight he encountered. It’s not much longer until Keith is slipping through the gates of the landfill, the stench of burning scrap metal like blood in the air, black smoke scouring his throat. He doesn’t know how Pidge can stand living in a place like this, but he guesses they hardly leave their lair unless it’s for necessities.

The privacy of the area is insurmountable, especially for someone with Pidge’s history and particular skillset. Their older brother Matt and their father Sam had certainly paid the price for their superior knowledge on New Age tech and weaponry. The older Holts had worked for Zarkon Enterprises, too, until they washed up on the pier with identical gunshot wounds to the head and half their bodies broken, tortured to pieces. Pidge immediately dropped off the radar after that, convinced that the company had something to do with it.

They had asked Hunk to run from Zarkon as well, and Keith by extension as a mutual friend. But Hunk had a family of twenty to feed and Keith was already in too deep. He doesn’t quite understand why Pidge still helps him now when he’s directly benefiting the company, but he guesses they must have an alternate agenda in place. Either that, or Hunk put in a good word for him.

Keith trudges through the mountains of debris, from refrigerators to toothbrushes to a whole fighter jet. If one didn’t know what they were looking for, they would’ve completely missed the entrance. But Keith spots the lime-green door among the wreckage, a decal of a lion burned into the sheet metal, and taps it in the pattern he’s memorized. A second later, the door swings open with a hiss. Keith crawls inside, knowing it will lock on its own behind him.

The interior of the landfill pile is hollow and humid, almost like a sauna. The warmth is welcome compared to the blistering winter outside, and Keith sheds his jacket, making his way down the tunnel toward the central work space. He can already hear the screech of an electric saw and the clammer of nails, the multi-trade engineer no doubt head deep in work.

By now, Pidge is more robot than human, experiments they ran on themselves throughout the years, sundering their bones and replacing them with rods of steel. Keith has never questioned the madness of it — grief drives people to incomprehensible extremes — but he thinks of it, privately, looking at this kid who must be no older than a teen, riving their flesh apart as if it meant nothing.

They’re tampering with their arm right now, sparks flying across the medical bench, their mechanical hand drilling through the circuitry. 

“Kogane, what did you break this time?” Pidge asks without looking up.

“I need something new,” Keith says, ignoring the gibe. After breaking one of Pidge’s beta drones on a job once, they’ve held a grudge against him ever since.

“What kind of new?”

“Something that would detect and disable an AI.”

As the words fall past his lips, Keith doesn’t look at Lance’s face, who’s reappeared next to his side. Even though he’s well aware of the details as to why Keith would need such a device, Keith still feels sick at the mere thought of it.

In the reflection of a chrome plate bolted into the wall, he sees Lance reach for his hand, their fingers blending together.

“Did you bring an AI with you to test?” Pidge asks, mechanical left eye whirring as they push up their goggles. Keith’s response is an immediate snarl.

“ _No_.”

Pidge snorts, unconcerned by Keith’s dramatic display of protectiveness, and hops off their bench, walking over to Lance with an outstretched hand.

“You must be Keith’s AI, then. Hunk’s mentioned you.”

Lance shakes Pidge’s hand enthusiastically, their hands completely out of sync with each other. “Hi, the name’s Lance!” he says, before lowering his voice to ask very seriously, “Are you a hobbit?”

Pidge splutters.

“I’ve been reading Tolkien to him,” Keith offers as an explanation.

Lance flits around the shop, his curiosity a near tangible spark, charging the air. Questions pop from his mouth, one after the other. Keith watches in amusement as Pidge answers all of them, the pallor of their cheeks quickly suffusing with color, a mixture of embarrassment, annoyance, and pride. They don’t seem used to being the center of attention, especially when that attention is so innocent and well-intentioned. Keith thinks he even sees the faintest trace of a smile on their usual grim features.

“You’re a strange one, for an AI,” they say, gazing at Lance with an angled brow and a perplexed light in their lone eye. Keith’s just about to ask what they mean when Pidge turns on their heel and walks away, disappearing behind a curtain with a short, “I’ll be back. Wait here.”

Lance frowns at Keith, to which Keith can only commit a shrug. Now it’s his turn to look around the room to pass the time, while Lance continues to float around, his steps soundless.

Not much has changed in the space. Pidge is as much of a hoarder as ever, but it seems they’ve managed to gain a few organizational skills since Keith last visited. Circuit boards and robotic body parts are stacked color-coded toward the ceiling, and there’s a screen of tools neatly arranged on the far right wall, from screwdrivers to nail guns to what appears to be a rocket launcher.

 _Dad would’ve yelled at me if he saw the mess_.

By the holo-TV, Keith picks up a gaming controller, green and layered with an assortment of stickers. It reminds him, once more, of the fact that Pidge is still only a kid, despite the staggering amount of knowledge hidden within their brain.

Suddenly, Lance flickers into shape beside him, appearing frazzled and somehow more pale, more transparent.

“Lance, what’s wrong?” Keith asks, immediately concerned. He drops the controller and lifts his hand to cradle the edge of Lance’s jaw, coaxing him to look up.

“Nothing, nothing I—” Lance’s eyes are unfocused, the halo within pulsing sporadically. If he were flesh and blood, his temperature would be cold, skin clammy. Keith’s never seen him look so shaken.

“Lance?”

Lance takes a deep breath, and then says, low and tremulously:

“I think I just saw the fattest rat in my life.”

“That would be Oliver,” Pidge enlightens, walking out from behind the curtain holding a gun that looks more like a canon. “He’s harmless, but he has a penchant for eating all my crackers. Here.” They drop the device into Keith’s hands, who’s managed to recover from Lance’s unexpected answer. “That’s an EMP gun. Should disable all security, weapons, and electronics within a hundred meter radius if you shoot it correctly.”

Keith tests the feel, appreciating how light the gun weighs despite its intimidating size. At the press of a button, it folds in on itself, compacting into a small box for easy carry and concealment.

“Thanks, Pidge,” he says, pocketing it. Pidge eyes him with a dubious look.

“Don’t break it this time.”

Keith scowls. “That was one—”

His tablet pings just then, a familiar logo appearing on the screen. Lance recognizes it instantly, his face falling.

“Another job? So soon?” 

Keith scans the report quickly before stowing his tablet away with a grimace. “Pidge, can you hold onto Lance for me? Until I’m done. Shouldn’t be more than a few hours.”

“Keith—” Lance starts, his voice pitching high with worry.

Keith presses a palm against his cheek, fingertips clipping through the tufts of brown hair, the wide curve of his ear. He kisses his forehead, that empty space, where not even the spark of static could illusion him. 

“I’ll come back to you,” he says, offering a reassuring smile as he always does, until Lance smiles back at him. “Promise.”

 

 

❦

 

 

The jobs increase in frequency and demand.

One night he’s slicing the throat of a senator who tried to come after Zarkon’s fortune, and by morning he’s planted a pressure bomb in the hovercraft of Voltron Energy’s most prized engineer. The missions are the riskiest he’s ever undertaken — all high profile kills that brush too close to the capital — but he pulls off each one successfully, a trail of dead ends that leave the police none the wiser and Zarkon far from implication thanks to his network of corruption.

Still, something nags at the back of Keith’s brain, a warning he can’t discern. There’s a pattern to these assignments he’s not seeing. It bothers him.

By the time he completes all his missions at the end of a two week stint, the exhaustion is bone deep, his eyelids drooping the minute he gets home and slumps against the door.

“Hello.”

Keith whips his head up at the unfamiliar voice. A stranger is standing in the living room. His hand immediately goes to his gun. 

“Hey, what the fuck?!” The stranger, a man, backs away as Keith approaches, legs knocking against the coffee table as he scrambles behind it, as if that would protect him.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

The man is tan-skinned, slim-built, with a head a white blonde curls. He’s attractive, and is dressed to take advantage of that, ripped leather pants low on his hips and a crop top tight around his torso. An insignia is stitched into the edge of the shirt, the bust of a weeping mermaid on the petals of a rose. _The Depths_ , one of the pleasure houses in the Luxia District, Keith realizes. He lowers his gun, but only slightly. 

“Who _am I_? You called me!” The prostitute has the gall to look offended. Keith growls with annoyance, mind reeling.

“I didn’t call you, how did you—”

“I called him.”

Lance appears in the living room, standing in-between them. He’s dressed in a baby blue sweater and gray sweats, his hair a disarray of curls and eyes rimmed with red. One hand is folded over his stomach to hold onto his arm, a tell when he’s anxious. Keith stares at him, unable to hide his shock.

“ _Why?_ ”

Lance bites the edge of his lower lip, but returns Keith’s gaze determinedly as he answers. “You’ve been working nonstop. You’re always stressed. I thought he could help you—”

Keith doesn’t want to hear the rest of that sentence, turning his attention back to the Luxia escort and uttering a cold, firm, “Get out.”

The blonde fumes, cheeks stewing an ugly red. “You made me come all the way here, through the _snow_ , for _nothing_?”

“ _Get out_ before I put a bullet inside you,” Keith snarls, and the prostitute finally gets the message, shoving his coat back on and storming out the apartment. The door slams shut with a rattling _bang_. 

After his footsteps recede, the room is ghostly silent for several heartbeats.

“Keith—” Lance begins.

“Why did you bring him here?”

At the thunder of his voice, Lance flinches and snaps his mouth shut. Keith instantly regrets his harshness, but he can’t shake off his anger either. “What made you think I wanted _anything to do_ —”

“I saw the way you looked at him!” Lance shouts, his distress causing him to dwindle in and out. Static cuts through the twist of his lips and the glassy shine of his eyes, bright with tears. “The way your heart sped up, I thought—”

“When did I even see—?!”

“When we went to go meet Pidge! He ran into you!”

Keith pauses, mind racing through the murk of the last few weeks. It’s a mess of blood and ash and the echoes of pleading, but eventually, he snags the vague recollection of the moment. A shot of blue in someone else’s eyes, a color that’s only ever reminded him of the one man he cares about.

“You know why,” he says, the anger subsiding, leaving him hollow. “If my heart responded, you know why.”

Understanding dawns fleetingly in Lance’s eyes, before his brows crumple and his jaw sets. It looks as if he’s on the brink of a sob, those limpid tears slipping from the curl of his lashes, cutting a blaze down his cheeks. Keith extends his arm — _to what, to touch him?_ — but then Lance is on the other side of the room, disappearing through the bedroom door.

Keith sighs, hand falling heavily against his side.

For the next few hours, he busies himself making food he has no intention of eating, attempting to clean the bathroom then giving up halfway, then sitting on the couch and staring at the TV, seeing nothing. He knows Lance had meant well. Knows that, whatever Lance had tried to do for him, he’d done it out of love. Keith shouldn’t have lost his temper and been so upset with him.

Eventually, he gathers the courage to enter the bedroom, dim except for the light pouring in through the windows, blue and muted. Lance is lying down on the bed, faced away from the door, legs curled up. He’s swaddled in a heavy bathrobe, as if trying to disappear into it. Carefully, Keith lies down behind him, wrapping an arm around his form, pressing his lips to the nape of his neck. Lance shudders against him, even though they can’t feel each other.

“I only want you,” Keith whispers. “I don’t want anyone else.” _It will always be you, and only you. Remember that._

“I’m enough,” Lance says, as if trying to convince himself. 

“Yes. You are enough.”

Keith will say it for as long as it takes Lance to truly believe it.

After a while, Lance sits up, passing through Keith’s arm. He turns around and stares at Keith through the dark, and Keith gazes back, laying himself bare before his dream of a lover.

Lance lets the bathrobe slip from his shoulders and pool around his hips. Arches his back and tilts his neck, allowing Keith to drink him in. His body is an oasis. No one else could compare. Real or not, flesh or not. Keith feels heat ignite low in his gut as Lance parts his thighs and strokes himself to hardness, the flush high on his cheeks and his breath ragged.

They can’t touch, and perhaps imagination is paltry to the real thing, but Keith would have no one else but Lance regardless of anything. He comes to Lance’s hand wrapped around his fist, overlapping, urging Keith to completion as he whispered sweet promises into his ear. 

The phantom of Lance’s touch follows him into his sleep.

 

 

❦

 

 

“We have a reward for you.”

Keith stares at Sendak as if he’s grown a second head.

“A _reward_ , Broker K. Don’t look so wary.”

Sendak motions for him to follow, and Keith keeps pace at a distance. They take the elevator down six floors to the second basement, the light of the hallway they enter a pure, gleaming white. Keith’s eyes sting from the change in brightness, a stark contrast from the other floors of the building that are usually dark and muted. 

“Do you have your AI with you?” Sendak asks, serene and conversational, as if he’s merely inquiring of the weather outside. Keith’s heart seizes, his footstep faltering like a skipped record.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to him that the company is aware of Lance. LANCE is a product of theirs, after all, and they must keep data on all the AI installations sold throughout the city, even the ones considered ‘faulty.’

If Sendak notices his silence, he doesn’t make a comment. “Your AI will be necessary for the full, how should I say, _experience_ of your reward.”

The leer in his voice immediately sets Keith on edge.

“What do you mean?”

At the seventh door, Sendak scans in, his eye stained red by the optical security device. The entrance slides open with a brief pulse of silver along its edges, before blending seamlessly into the wall, revealing a shadowy room inside. The space is dark, save for the flashes of red and blue machinery and a panoramic glass panel on the other side, glowing a cold, barren white.

“There’s a piece of new tech we’ve been experimenting with, an advancement in virtual reality we plan to launch within the next month. Its prototype is complete now.” Sendak places his hand on the shoulder of one of the workers seated at the control panel, murmuring a low command. A door at the end of the long room opens, unveiling a shaft of ghostly light that barely dissolves the darkness.

“We thought you’d be interested in trying it.”

Like the pull of a magnet, Lance is drawn from the emanator pixel by pixel, his surprise and confusion evident on his face. Keith immediately reaches for his firearm, instinct driven, not giving a damn that he’s technically pulling a gun on his superior. Everything inside him explodes to static, a torrent of white noise, and all that matters is protecting Lance. He’ll burn the whole place down if Sendak lays a hand on him.

The barrel-chested executive laughs, nearly doubling over in his mirth. “Your AI’s safe, I assure you,” he says. “You, on the other hand…” The laughter dies out almost instantly, and Sendak’s eyes sharpen on the revolver clutched in Keith’s white-knuckled grip. “Don’t make me dispatch you in front of your beloved toy, Broker K.”

Keith grits his teeth, wanting nothing more than to bash Sendak’s teeth in for the position he holds and for demeaning Lance’s existence. But Lance’s hand comes to rest on his bicep, easing him back. One pleading look from those wide blue eyes has Keith lowering his gun. 

“Excellent. I’m pleased to see our product holds the logic you lack.” Sendak sneers. Keith remains tight-lipped, clenching and unclenching his fingers. “Let’s continue, shall we? Your award awaits.”

One of the uniformed workers steps forward, a white circular device in hand. Its tail is curved to fit behind a person’s ear, rimmed with a row of tiny purple lights. Keith is told to stay still as she latches the VR implant onto his temporal bone, the back of it acting as a magnet, adhering tightly to Keith’s skin. Nothing happens except for a sharp burst of pain and a hum in his ear, fading to silence within a few seconds.

“Haven’t you always wanted to touch your AI, Broker K?”

Keith startles at the question, his heart pounding.

“Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? Well, now you’ll have the opportunity to live it.”

Sendak motions toward the open door, a seemingly harmless gesture that orders them to step inside. Seeing no other choice, Keith obeys, Lance walking close beside him. As soon as they enter, the door seals shut, melding into the wall until it disappears.

The room now surrounding them is a vaulting dome, and so white that Keith can’t make out the beginnings and ends of it. There’s no glass panel behind them where the other room should be; only more barren wall, patterned into hexagonal shapes that stretch to the ceiling. Lance walks across the threshold, a warm brush of color on a blinding canvas, and tilts his head this way and that, observing the area.

His eyes meet Keith’s and hold as Sendak’s voice crackles through an intercom above, tinny and far away.

“You have the night,” he says, before silence consumes the static.

The implant against Keith’s temporal bone beeps once, twice, before the white floor beneath him saturates with beiges and creams before his very eyes, like the steep of tea leaves in a cup. Suddenly, he feels the texture of carpet between his toes, humidity against his skin. When he draws his eyes up, a king-sized bed sits against the wall, piled high with downy white sheets and plush pillows.

The lighting of the room has changed as well, a gentle ochre that warms the indigo night, spilling in through the parted French doors on the other side. Gossamer curtains lift in the breeze, and dark emerald palm trees flicker behind the gold and white scaffolding. Beyond that, a rhythmic hush caresses his ear, echoing, echoing.

It doesn’t smell of cold, wet city. Rather, there’s the tang of salt spray in the air, the scent of open water. _The ocean,_ Keith realizes. They must be by a beach.

“Keith, this place looks like our dream,” Lance whispers, his mouth a soft, pink _oh_. He seems different somehow, his colors stronger, more solid. Keith walks to where he stands by the edge of the bed, and realizes with a start that he can no longer see through him, his opacity complete.

The space between them feels different, too. Weighted, warm, like the heat that pours from a radiator. There’s no longer the hum of static and the flash of pixels. No longer the emptiness Keith feels when Lance is so close to him yet infinitely far apart. 

“Keith?” Lance asks, quiet and unsure.

Understanding finally sinks in, but no, _it’s too good to be true._ It couldn’t be, right? Everything Keith’s ever wanted, now right in front of him.

Slowly, carefully, he reaches out, fingers shaking as they gently graze Lance’s cheek. The first touch is electric, a shock that runs from the tips of his fingers all the way through him. Lance feels it too, his breath escaping in a short, jolting gasp. It falls hot on the inside of Keith’s wrist.

“I can finally—” Tears press against Keith’s eyes, and he can hardly speak, hardly breathe. “I can finally touch you.”

The words collapse out of him as he holds the warm weight of Lance in his hands, heart on the verge of breaking from that simple miracle alone. His palms don’t sink through air. His fingers don’t grasp at static and nothingness. Instead, when he presses his palm gently against Lance’s cheek, the skin yields soft and pliant beneath every callous. And when he traces the bow of Lance’s plush mouth, the kiss Lance drops on the pad of his fingertip is enough to shatter him apart.

“Keith,” Lance cries, tears mirroring Keith’s own, slipping silver down his cheeks. His smile is radiant, brimming with euphoria. Keith threads his fingers through the soft strands of hair, tugging him close until their bodies are flush together.

This time, Lance’s body doesn’t pass through his. Lance is soft and solid and real against him. He can still hardly believe it when Lance wraps his arms around his waist, nose grazing his neck as he nuzzles into his shoulder.

“You’re warm,” Lance sighs, curling in until not a single fragment of them are apart. Keith holds on tight, breathing in the lilies and honey of Lance’s scent, cherishing every moment that passes by. “Of course you’d run hot in more ways than one.”

His tone eases to playful, and his smile makes Keith’s heart ache, near painful in its happiness. Lance drops chaste, sweet kisses all over his face, marveling at all the ways they can now connect, his lips a cool balm to Keith’s heated skin. He runs cold, but that’s fine. Keith knows he can warm him up.

When their lips finally touch, a soft, fleeting brush, it’s everything. The warmth, the thrill. Keith smooths away Lance’s tears and tilts his jaw, deepening the kiss. Every cell inside him is sparking, singing as Lance’s lips part, letting Keith delve inside. His heart that’s been starved for so long finally feels sated, savoring the sweetness of Lance. But with each kiss, the hunger only grows.

Their kisses become more rough, burning, and their touches more desperate. Lance mewls against his mouth as Keith begins to undress him, fingers shaking when he pulls the buttons apart, scattering them across the floor. He rips those slim fitting pants off and grips two palmfuls of ass, relishing the softness of bare skin and Lance’s full body shudder against his chest.

Lance loops his arms around Keith’s neck and kisses him just as fierce, arching in and grinding against the top of his thigh, trying to press as close as possible.

“Off, too.” The plea is barely discerned from his moan, but Keith breaks away from him to pull the shirt over his head, making quick work of his pants despite Lance’s distracting hands. Then, they’re both naked, and Keith is pushing Lance onto the bed, caging him in.

In the syrupy light, Keith takes a moment to admire him.

All that smooth, flawless skin, doused golden in the lamplight. His lean muscles and svelte waist. Those graceful hipbones and the lushness of his thighs. His cock is hard and wet and beautiful against his stomach. Keith pries his knees apart when he tries to close them self-consciously, holding him open and exposed. Lance’s hands clench into the pillows beside his head, and he turns his face away, cheeks flaring deep red and blue eyes glistening with tears.

“You’re gorgeous, perfect.” Keith presses a kiss to the delicate skin on the inside of Lance’s knee, Lance shuddering in response.

“Keith,” he breathes, overwhelmed. His spine arches when the head of Keith’s cock bumps against his entrance, already fluttering to be filled. His kiss-bruised lips will spill blood if he keeps biting them like that to hold his voice down. Keith wants every wail and every scream. Wants to hear only his name fall from that perfect mouth.

“Don’t hold back, sweetheart,” he whispers, before leaning down and dragging his tongue up Lance’s beautiful cock. The cry that Lance releases satisfies a bone deep part of him, swelling inside his chest. He swirls his tongue around before swallowing down, relishing Lance’s cries. From taint to tip, Keith savors him, then moves down to lick at his entrance, pressing his tongue in. Every part of Lance tastes sweet. Keith could eat him out for hours, drawing moans and orgasms until Lance is a mess of sweat and come and shaking thighs.

“Keith, I want—” Lance tugs on his hair, just sharp enough for Keith to look up. He doesn’t lift his mouth from the bruise he’s nursed into Lance’s skin, watching as those blue eyes eclipse, pupils dark moons. The grip on the crown of his head tightens, and Keith rumbles in approval, the pleasure-pain bolting straight to his gut, his cock dragging against the bed sheets. “I want to touch you, too.”

The plea is sweet and heavy with need. Keith can’t deny him, heart clenched and bruised as he raises himself up, parting Lance’s thighs to crawl through that space. What he doesn’t expect is for those legs to wrap around his waist, for Lance to push against his chest and in one motion, flip them over, weight firmly nestled above Keith’s hips.

Their hard cocks drag hotly against each other, Lance rolling his body just so as his hands roam down Keith’s shoulders, his chest, his stomach. He’s taking his time, just as Keith had, memorizing every contour and divot, every wound and scar. His thumb grazes Keith’s nipple, pinching the sensitive skin just so, and Keith shudders, hips bucking.

When Lance gently grips the base of his cock, running his soft fingers up and down the swollen shaft, feeling the hard ridge of veins, Keith loses all breath. His nails dig into the sheets as Lance slides down, hand dragging firmly around Keith’s cock all the while.

Lance’s bitten lips, red and sweet as cherries. How many times has Keith imagined those lips wrapping around his cock? How wet and warm the inside of his mouth would be. How the vibrations of his moans would throb through Keith and undo him completely.

A soft kitten lick to the head of his cock, then a wet, hot drag. Lance holds him like a treasure, worshipping every inch with kisses and laves of his tongue, before shyly swallowing as much of him as possible. It takes all of Keith’s willpower not to instantly buck into that heat, his hips trembling with the effort. When his cock slides further down though, Lance lets out the most heady, intoxicated moan, blue eyes rolling back in pleasure.

“You like that, sweetheart?” Keith growls, cupping Lance’s cheek, watching those long lashes flutter. Lance moans in assent, the vibration pulsing straight through Keith’s gut. That’s all the permission he needs before gripping Lance’s hair, holding his head in place as Keith begins to shallowly throat fuck him.

Every time Keith hits the back of his throat, Lance mewls happily, his hips grinding down on the bed sheets. Keith praises him all the while — _sweetheart, you’re doing so good, taking me so well_ — and that only spurs Lance more, his cheeks hollowing as he wets Keith’s cock.

At the last second, Keith pulls away, not wanting to come until he’s given Lance all the pleasure and more.

“I’m ready,” Lance whispers, voice raw and hoarse as he lays back down, twisting his hips to reveal his loosened hole. He’s been fingering himself while swallowing Keith’s cock, the minx. Keith feels his arousal flare almost painfully as Lance guides his fingers to his entrance, letting him dip in to feel how hot and tight he is. “Fuck me, Keith. I’ve wanted you for so long, please—”

Keith kisses him quiet, so turned on by Lance’s begging that he could’ve come from just that. He dips two fingers into Lance’s babbling mouth, letting him coat them with thick with spit, before thrusting them into his hole, scissoring them carefully apart. Pre-come leaks from Lance’s flared cock as he writhes on top of Keith’s fingers, chanting a litany of _yes_ and _please_ as Keith adds a third.

“Keith, I need your cock, I don’t want to come like this I don’t— _ah!_ ”

The tip of Keith’s cock slides in as soon as he removes his fingers, pushing slow into Lance’s tight heat.

“I love you so much,” Keith murmurs when he’s finally buried to the hilt, Lance trembling beneath him. He’s breathing too heavily, his hole a vice grip around Keith’s cock. Keith eases him with soft kisses, until Lance nods, letting Keith know it’s okay to move.

They start slow, Lance whining sweetly with every slow, rough drag. His insides are so soft and hot and wet, melding to Keith’s shape. When Lance begins to meet his thrusts, Keith begins pounding in earnest, thick cock driving from head to hilt, nailing Lance’s prostrate each time. Lance’s tight little hole clenches around him with each pass, as if trying to keep Keith inside him, as if trying to stay filled with him always.

“Keith, I love you,” Lance cries against his lips, his tongue pressing into Keith’s panting mouth, his cock pulsing hot between their flushed stomachs. “I love you I love you _Iloveyou_ —”

Keith swallows his sob, fingers clenching tight around Lance’s limp, trembling hands above his head, grinding deep as he comes inside him. His whole body shakes with the force of his orgasm, vision whiting out, heartbeat thundering through every limb, every vein. He is all heat. He is the birth and death of a star. Keith doesn’t know where they end and begin, only that when he opens his eyes, Lance’s bright blue ones are staring up at him, warm with love and bliss.

“Hey there, baby,” he murmurs, breathless. He has never sounded more sweet. “Come back down to earth yet?”

Slowly, tenderly, Keith unlinks their hands, resting them against Lance’s hair, sifting through the soft, wet strands. Lance tilts his head and kisses Keith’s palm, fingers reaching to gently hold his wrists. He winces softly when Keith pulls out. Keith brushes his lips over the crease in his brows.

“You felt amazing,” he whispers, soft and hoarse. Lance giggles, and Keith nuzzles his nose, heart overflowing with fondness.

“I knew I would blow your mind,” Lance sighs happily, dimple winking at the corner of his mouth. Keith kisses it, feeling Lance mumble: “You felt really good, too. Perfect inside me.”

Keith slides down.

“Keith—wha— _Ooh_.”

Keith licks the come from Lance’s loose, pulsing hole, causing him to gasp and twist, legs spasming in the air. Keith holds his stuttering hips down and eats him out languidly, savoring the taste and Lance’s high, breathy keens. Lance’s spent cock hardens once more, and it’s not long before he’s pushing Keith away and crawling onto his knees, presenting himself on all fours, thighs parted wide above the mattress, begging Keith to mount him again, to fill him anew.

Then Keith is drilling in for a second time, snarling low at how tight Lance still is, his spongy walls milking his cock with every sloppy squelch. Keith’s cock is drenched in his come and saliva and the remnants of oil, the sound of their lovemaking obscene against the lull of the ocean.

Gone is their slow, careful love making, replaced by reverent desperation. When Lance’s thighs collapse underneath him with the force of Keith’s thrusts, his wails raw and fucked out. Keith bends down and pulls him up against his chest, palm splayed wide over his soft belly. They fall backwards together, Lance’s head pillowing against the dip of Keith’s shoulder, the bow of his back beautifully arched as he cries out from the change in position.

Keith pins him down, staring at the bite marks blooming across Lance’s neck, feeling the wetness between his inner thighs. Dark, deep bruises cover every inch of his skin. Keith’s scarred hands are stark against his flushed chest and waist, nipples tight beneath his thumb and glistening with a sheen of sweat. Lance’s red-slick mouth is slack with pleasure, blue eyes glazed as he pants and whines, completely lost to the feeling of Keith pounding into him.

Those beautiful eyes sharpen when he tilts his head up, begging Keith for another kiss.

Keith fucks Lance rough and relentless, then slow and languid and sweet. Fucks him into incoherency, until he’s passed out and awakened by the feel of Keith coming inside him, by Keith licking his sloppy entrance and suckling his swollen nipples clean. Keith takes his pleasure and gives it back to Lance tenfold, marking every smooth, perfect inch of him.

At times, they drift off, too tired to hold on but too scared to rest for fear that the other would disappear.

In Keith’s dreams, the night never ends.

 

 

❦

 

 

When they wake, it’s barely dawn. The ocean breathes over them, softly, softly.

Lance mumbles something against his collarbone, a quiet whine that has Keith smiling against his hair, pressing a kiss to his forehead. A pale shaft of sunlight falls over his freckled shoulder, and Keith memorizes each starburst as Lance stirs.

“Mornin’, sweetheart,” he whispers, heart throbbing at the sight of Lance’s answering smile, soft and sleepy and so, _so happy_. 

“Mornin’.” Lance tilts his chin up for a kiss, pressing that beautiful smile to Keith’s lips. “Did you sleep well?”

Keith hums, arm curling around Lance’s waist, nuzzling their noses together. “Perfect,” he says, and listens to Lance’s blissful giggle, his breath fanning warm across Keith’s chin.

Underneath the covers, their ankles are hooked together, and Keith’s leg is pressed snugly between Lance’s thighs. Their kisses are languid, slow and full of warmth. Keith could kiss him forever, if time would let them.

_Time._

Lance seems to register it, too, his joy diminishing. He moves to slip away, but Keith holds onto him.

“Keith,” Lance whispers, hoarse and scared. “We shouldn’t. It will hurt when—”

“Just a little longer. Please.”

Pain cuts through Lance’s face, but he smooths it away for Keith. Their hands stay interlinked, fingers overlapping one another’s, a criss-cross of brown and white. Keith rubs his thumb over the ridge of Lance’s knuckle, feeling every groove and dip, and carves their shape into the landscape of his heart.

When it happens.

When it happens. The weight of Lance’s hand vanishes, along with his warmth. Keith watches as their fingers sink through each other, fractured and wrong, brown skin transparent once more against bruised knuckles and snow white sheets.

Piece by piece, he feels himself crumple.

“K-Keith,” Lance cries, trying to reach for him as he pulls away, to comfort him despite the bright shine of tears streaking down his face. His hand clips through Keith’s arm and he flinches, his own transparency like a new skin he must relearn, but nevertheless he presses forward, cupping his hands around Keith’s jaw as best he can.

“Ssshh, love. I’m here. I’m still here.”

Keith can’t bear to hold him in return, the knowledge of nothingness more damning than ever. Around them, the room dissolves, until there is nothing but sterile white walls and a hard cot below them.

Until Keith can feel nothing but pain, and loss, and emptiness.

 


End file.
